The Black Rose

Chapter One

It was near dark as Rose staggered in between trees. She knew she had to get off the ground. For the past few days, due to zombies migrating together, she had been on the run. But her body was now completely shutting down due to lack of rest and food. Rose's eyes scanned the tree canopy above her. It'll have to do for tonight. She'll just rest up there for the night.

Her hands searched for the tree's crevices and bumps then slowly pulled herself up onto the tree. Her body protested as she pulled her own body weight along with a sturdy book pack. Once she reached a sturdy limb, she shrugged off her book pack and hung it across from her. Rose unclipped the rolled up hammock from the bottom of her pack and began to attach it to two thick tree branches. Balancing herself on a tree branch, she reached over to grab the book pack and threw it over onto the hammock.

Darkness cloaked everything but her eyes were expertly attuned to the dark as she pulled out a jar filled with zombie blood. It was just a precaution to cover up her smell. Last thing Rose want is a herd of zombies bringing the trees down to get to her. She smeared it on the tree trunks, the branches and some of the leaves surrounding her. The smell didn't bother her anymore. The guttural noises emitting from the zombies below her filled the silence as Rose shrugged off her bow and its quarry of arrows that was slung over her right shoulder and hung it on a little tree limb not too far from her. Then she unclasped the sheath belt that held a razor sharp katana sword from her left shoulder. She'll just rest her eyes.

Some screaming startled her as her eyes popped wide open. It was a murky haze of sunlight and she realized that the sun was in the west. She slept in too long. At first, she didn't remember where she was. She scanned her surrounding as she pulled back her curly red hair back into a tight ponytail, Leaves.... Branches... Trees. Letting out a relieved sigh, she remember setting up camp last night. Shit... she didn't planned on falling asleep completely. She only meant to just close her eyes for a bit to allow her body to recover. Rose knew better. Years of doing her job definitely helped her survive in this godforsaken world.

When she heard the herd of zombies shuffling their feet under her, Rose sighed... she needed food. Making a mental check, she made sure that her weapons and belongings were still near. Her bow hung safely on a branch and the katana sword was safely encased in its sheath beside her. Rose was grateful for her hammock. She altered the hammocks a little and it was comfortable and light now. It was originally just a simple weaved nylon hammock. Rose took two hammock together and sewed several sheets of foams onto it. But suddenly a strange feeling hit her as she realized that screaming... human screaming woke her up.

She had never been good with people. She was more of a loner... it was part of her job. It was basically drilled into her that she had to depend on herself and nobody else. It was dangerous to depend on others. However for some reason, something was compelling her to go help. Rose knew that she was probably going to regret this. But gunshots filled the air, sending her into action. She quickly cleaned up her camp and smeared more zombie blood onto herself. A hard grin came across Rose's face as she noticed that the blood looked like war paint. Without bothering to look how far she was from the ground, she jumped down and gracefully rolled over to break the fall.

Almost immediately, zombies were being drawn to her as she rolled her eyes, pulling out her katana sword, immediately cutting off their top part of heads. The blood splattered onto her as she made her way towards the gunfire.

There were a beautiful white farmhouse on the property as she saw a RV in front of a burning barn. Displeasure came darkly onto Rose's face. Shit... whoever burned that barn is an idiot. That'll attract the zombies from miles and miles around. Her suspicions of the zombies coming together and migrating for food were right as she saw maybe hundred zombies just completely plowing through the land. Her training took over as she began to cut through the zombies, attempting to locate the gunshots. The people were obviously idiots. Rose wondered to herself why she was helping them. They were wasting ammo. She sure as hell isn't going to use her guns or her ammos. That'll just attract more zombies towards her.